ABSTRACT

There is a folk wisdom in academic circles that educational technologies come and go, leaving expensive machines to lie in cupboards, gathering dust. The main reason for this, when it occurs, is neglect of the organisational context for the learning process, not just, as is often supposed, the poor quality of teaching the machines provide. There is plenty of traditional teaching on offer in universities that is poor in quality, sustained nonetheless by its fit with the learning context. Educational technologies, especially new ones, demand effort and ingenuity in the development of materials, but rarely is this extended to the embedding of those materials in their educational niche. This is one of the key reasons why they have made relatively little impact in higher education, despite their potential, and why we need to devote the two final chapters of this book to the organisational context for learning.